Well over 100 voters came to the meeting. My "rule of town meetings" is that whenever more than 110 voters show up, they're there to vote no on whatever the issue is. In this case that issue was the library. The police station may be the exception that proves the rule.
Sunday, November 07, 2010
Special Town Meeting Results
As expected, participation in the startup WiredWest (the coalition of towns that hopes to bring broadband to our homes and businesses) passed overwhemingly. The school committee's version of the new 5 town agreement beat out the Egremont version. The library proposal was badly defeated. And although it won a majority vote, the proposed modular police station on the annex site lost because it failed to get the required two-thirds vote.
Thursday, November 04, 2010
Police Station
I'm voting against it for 3 reasons:
1. The federal and state governments are in real trouble as a result of too much spending and too much debt. Let's not make the same mistake in Egremont. We're looking at reduced money from the feds and from the state for many years. So we need the money in our reserve funds (including free cash) and shouldn't be spending it on a police station.
2. South Berkshire will see increasing regionalization in coming years. Each town having its own fire department, police department, etc., is expensive and inefficient, especially given implementation of more and more sophisticated equipment that often becomes obsolete quickly. Why build an edifice that is designed to last at least 50 years for a function that may not last more than 10 - or maybe even 5 - years?
3. I'm not convinced we've examined need - and need solutions - closely enough. I've heard about 8 reasons why we need a new police building, some of which seem a bit bogus, and the remainder of which should be looked at individually to see the best way to handle them. There is a lot of space at town hall that isn't being used as efficiently as it might. Does the police department need more record keeping space? I'm sure it can be found somewhere in town hall. Does the department need a "holding pen?" Why not just add a little space for that purpose at the south end of the town hall? If we go through the real needs one by one, I'll bet we can find separate solutions that cost a lot less than $400,000 to $500,000.
1. The federal and state governments are in real trouble as a result of too much spending and too much debt. Let's not make the same mistake in Egremont. We're looking at reduced money from the feds and from the state for many years. So we need the money in our reserve funds (including free cash) and shouldn't be spending it on a police station.
2. South Berkshire will see increasing regionalization in coming years. Each town having its own fire department, police department, etc., is expensive and inefficient, especially given implementation of more and more sophisticated equipment that often becomes obsolete quickly. Why build an edifice that is designed to last at least 50 years for a function that may not last more than 10 - or maybe even 5 - years?
3. I'm not convinced we've examined need - and need solutions - closely enough. I've heard about 8 reasons why we need a new police building, some of which seem a bit bogus, and the remainder of which should be looked at individually to see the best way to handle them. There is a lot of space at town hall that isn't being used as efficiently as it might. Does the police department need more record keeping space? I'm sure it can be found somewhere in town hall. Does the department need a "holding pen?" Why not just add a little space for that purpose at the south end of the town hall? If we go through the real needs one by one, I'll bet we can find separate solutions that cost a lot less than $400,000 to $500,000.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
